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The economic costs of biological invasions in Central and South America: a first regional assessment

by: Heringer, Gustavo; Angulo, Elena; Ballesteros-Mejia, Liliana; Capinha, César; Courchamp, Franck; Diagne, Christophe; Duboscq-Carra, Virginia Gisela; Nuñez, Martín Andrés; Zenni, Rafael Dudeque

Publication date: 2021-7-29
Usage: Attribution 4.0 International
Topics: Biological invasions, Central America, economic costs, economic impact, hyper-costly species, InvaCost, South America
Publisher: Pensoft Publishers
Collection: biodiversity
Contributor: Pensoft Publishers
Language: English
Rights: https://biodiversitylibrary.org/permissions
Rights-holder: Copyright held by individual article author(s).
Volume: 67
Item Size: 28.5M

Abstract: Invasive alien species are responsible for a high economic impact on many sectors worldwide. Nevertheless, there is a scarcity of studies assessing these impacts in Central and South America. Investigating costs of invasions is important to motivate and guide policy responses by increasing stakeholders’ awareness and identifying action priorities. Here, we used the InvaCost database to investigate (i) the geographical pattern of biological invasion costs across the region; (ii) the monetary expenditure across taxa and impacted sectors; and (iii) the taxa responsible for more than 50% of the costs (hyper-costly taxa) per impacted sector and type of costs. The total of reliable and observed costs reported for biological invasions in Central and South America was USD 102.5 billion between 1975 and 2020, but about 90% of the total costs were reported for only three countries (Brazil, Argentina and Colombia). Costs per species were associated with geographical regions (i.e., South America, Central America and Islands) and with the area of the countries in km2. Most of the expenses were associated with damage costs (97.8%), whereas multiple sectors (77.4%), agriculture (15%) and public and social welfare (4.2%) were the most impacted sectors. Aedes spp. was the hyper-costly taxon for the terrestrial environment (costs of USD 25 billion) and water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) was the hyper-costly taxon for the aquatic environment (USD 179.9 million). Six taxa were classified as hyper-costly for at least one impacted sector and two taxa for at least one type of cost. In conclusion, invasive alien species caused billions of dollars of economic burden in Central and South America, mainly in large countries of South America. Costs caused by invasive alien species were unevenly distributed across countries, impacted sectors, types of costs and taxa (hyper-costly taxa). These results suggest that impacted sectors should drive efforts to manage the species that are draining financial sources.
Addeddate: 2025-04-02 08:59:10
Bhl_virtual_titleid: 210923
Bhl_virtual_volume: v.67 (2021)
Call number: 10_3897_neobiota_67_59193
Call-number: 10_3897_neobiota_67_59193
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Genre: article
Identifier: economiccostsbi67heri
Identifier-ark: ark:/13960/s2gvjvs6gt5
Identifier-bib: 10_3897_neobiota_67_59193
Identifier-doi: 10.3897/neobiota.67.59193
Ocr: tesseract 5.3.0-6-g76ae
Ocr_detected_lang: en
Ocr_detected_lang_conf: 1.0000
Ocr_detected_script: Latin
Ocr_detected_script_conf: 1.0000
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Ocr_parameters: -l eng
Page_number_confidence: 83
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Page_range: 401-426
Pages: 26
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Possible copyright status: In copyright. Digitized with the permission of the rights holder.
Ppi: 300
Source: NeoBiota 67
Year: 2021